It's only paranoia when it's not based on facts or evidence. Here the evidence is clear if you are willing to take a hard look at Steam's activities and at its EULA and privacy policy. It's not paranoia simply because you love Valve so much that you refuse to believe the evidence.

Ironic to see you go on about the necessity of facts when you never fucking present any.

From the privacy policy itself, rather than the cobwebs of your rattled mind:

Valve shall not share personally identifiable information with other parties, except as described in the policy below.

and..

Valve will not share personally identifiable information with any third party unless the user agrees to such disclosure in advance. "Personally identifiable information" consists of a user's name, email address, physical address, or other data about the user that enables the recipient to personally identify the user. While Valve collects personally identifiable information on a voluntary basis, for certain products and online sites, Valve's collection of personally identifiable information may be a requirement for access to the product or site.

The integration of Steam is MUCH more than just an authentication change from its previous games.

Yeah, I know. I said it was authentication, automatic patching, a small store, and then whatever minor logging Valve does. Given that Steam is running in the background right now, eating all of 4.5 mb of memory and using no cycles I think it's fair to say that Steam only logs shit when I'm actually using it for something. Until there's any evidence to the contrary we have no reason to assume that Valve is stealing all sorts of fucking random useless (to them) information.

I would rather Valve not have "supported" its older games by forcing customers to install and run its unreliable, restrictive, and invasive bloatware just so it could have a captive audience to which to market and sell its future crapware.

You calling Steam names (bloatware, crapware) doesn't make it so, Rilemeister. Idle and in the background steam eats 4.5 mb of memory (not that you'd know, given that it would certainly eat your soul were you to install it) and zero cpu cycles. It doesn't phone home, it doesn't deploy root kits or trojans or fucking do anything but wait for me to open a window..

Yes! That's all it fucking does! Show me otherwise and I'll believe you, but given that you don't even USE this software I'm certain that you're totally incapable of that... And as for the 'web browser' it's fucking windows functionality, if you don't like programs to open up explorer windows to browse content then switch OS's, Valve is just using the features of the OS they support, it's an easy way to serve content to their clients.

Neither you nor I knows the extent of the data collected.

So we have to assume they're mining our systems for every little detail they can possibly find? I think it's far safer to assume that they're getting info relevant to their business practices, given that their privacy policy does not allow them to actually sell any information that they would manage to get their hands on...

But no, that's far too logical. Lets assume Valve is stockpiling this information for some kind of massive information rollout, in which they decrypt their address information and steal our posessions in the middle of the night...

While we're at it, we beter assume Amazon, Ebay, paypal, and every other fucking electronic retailer (better include the CC companies and banks here) is working on the same master plan. Lock up our assets, time to invest in those liberty dollars, for truely these are the end times!

Steam is a purchase system and the whole thing is tied to individual accounts and their associated information. Anonymous, my ass! You must have your head up Valve's ass to believe Steam is anonymnous.

The data they collect re: system information is. It's fair to assume they keep all of it anonymous, for their puproses the user information is TOTALLY useless. BTW, you still haven't provided a motive for Valve's alledged data mining, why is it I should be worried about this crap? Simply because they 'could'? That's what I thought.. logic has no grounds here, apparently...

Most if not all other games which use a third-party service like Gamespy to handle the multiplayer support get lifetime support from that service. If Half-Life 1 had been designed to use Gamespy, Valve could not have pulled the plug on its existing users and forced Steam upon them. There is nothing stellar about Valve's support of its older games. The only times they have been updated is to integrate Steam and to correct bugs in Steam and Steam support. With other games, such patches have not been necessary and there are certainly games which still work online which are older than Valve's.

Jesus you're a god damn idiot. First of all, until recently gamespy didn't even fucking do any authentication services. Back when HL was released Gamespy was just a server browser, and dedicated most of its bandwidth to running the various game 'planets'. At any rate, even if gamespy was doing the server authentication (which Valve would have to pay for) there'd be nothing stopping gamespy from logging the same data... and I'd be very surprised if they didn't!

As for Valve's support record, name one other game company that was adding to and patching a game for as long as Valve was. They released TFC and a dm mod for HL 1, along with numerous code updates which amounted to a total rewrite of the networking code since the original release. They held events for the mod community and even dedicated vast amounts of their time documenting their tools so that the mod community could get the most out of them (something unheard of at the time, good luck learning WorldCraft before valve stepped up).

I could go on, but why bother. You'll still just pretend that Valve's support is shitty.. never cite any evidence.. merely proclaim it is so and move on (just like what you did when calling Steam "bloatware").

Steam has advertisements, and some such as the ones which appear in the download windows (and are served from www.steampowered.com/platform/banner/ and steam.hypernia.net/steam*) cannot be turned off using Steam.

I just fuckin opened steam and looked through every window. The only one with any 'advertisements' is the "Store" window which lists the games they sell. Are they not allowed to use banners for that? Are we supposed to pretend it's 1994 and go text only? Even their news page (http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=news) is ad free... STFU and stop spreading your fucking FUD.

Steam's tracking IS invasive and worst still is that you can't turn it off at least not completely and/or legally.

You can say it "IS" in all caps all you want, but that doesn't make it so. Provide some fucking evidence and some of us here might start taking you seriously, douche.

LA set a RIDICULOUS deadline, nevermind that Obsidian tried to do too much.. that is irrelevant. LA's expectations were high, Obsidian knew this. The fan's expectations were high, Obsidian knew this. Given the 1 year dev cycle they released an EXCELLENT game, very few devs could make anything better in that idiotic time frame. Obviously content was cut short, but the nature of the RPG market is such that it is impossible to make a quality product in a year.

LA made an idiotic business decision trying to make an RPG in a year. Obsidian was just the fall guy, the poor dev that couldn't resist the temptation of the Star Wars license and all the idiocy that comes attached.

How they thought to take 15 months for a 12 month game is beyond my understanding.

Modern game development requires time. People that don't understand this are idiots, and are the reason we end up with games like KOTOR 2, or the myriad of other half finished pieces of shit that gamers get foisted upon them...

...unless by "unparalleled support" you mean unparalleled in screwing over its customers by forcing Steam and all of its associated problems, restrictions, invasiveness, and shortcomings upon them.

Are you serious? Just because they 'screw[ed] over' their customers by updating the authentication schema does not override the fact that they're supporting a game released fucking EIGHT years ago. EA doesn't even support the sports games it released LAST year.

No, Steam wasn't perfect when it was released, but it's hardly the fucking root kit you seem to thing it is. It's not malware, it's not bloatware, it's nothing but a small server browswer and update utility, along with a store from which you can buy games (what amounts to an explorer window).

The "spying" it does on you is nothing more than occasionally polling system info (which helps them determine what machines they need to design for, a GREAT thing from a dev's persective) and keeping track of which games are or are not popular. With single player games they can see how often a map is loaded or whether a game is completed and that can, in turn, help them figure out what is and is not fun.

This isn't my fucking browser history, or my voting record, or my financial info or anything else! It's the fucking GAMES I play, and, as far as I know, that information is kept ANONYMOUS and not associated with individual accounts or identities.

Obviously, Valve can't afford to support every game they release from now until the end of time without getting something in return (long term) for that support. All they get from steam is data which DIRECTLY helps their business model.. no advertisements you can't turn off, nothing invasive.

What EA's done with BF 2142 is a discrace, and can't be rationalized at all. But what Valve does is TOTALLY different, and the fact that you can't see the difference illustrates your monumental, insurmountable bias beautifully.

...they made a huge mistake in taking on Kotor2 and planning the game they did. NWN2 has just as much chance of being great as it has of being crap.

They made a huge mistake? More like their publisher fucked up big time. KOTOR 2 was probably the best Star Wars game ever made, and definitely the best rpg, up until you got to the aborted ending. Don't blame developers for trying to make awesome games, blame idiotic publishers for thinking they have to get the game out the door now or they won't make any money.

I have no reservations in predicting that this games campaign will dwarf the original, obviously it won't rival BG 2... but nothing does...

...because you have some blind loyalty to Valve doesn't make it any less true. If Valve didn't do it, it wouldn't be included in its privacy policy and EULA.

Blind loyalty? Just because someone doesn't spend their life trolling every thread with anti-Steam shit doesn't make them some Valve fanboi, Riley...

Yeah, Valve logs data, but it's stuff like system information and games played. You know, information that can help them better save their user base. It's not like they log the websites you visit or some invasive shit like that.

And please don't go off about how they could if they "wanted" to or some bullshit. The Riley that whines about shit that actually happens is annoying enough, I don't want to start reading posts in which you continualy whine about shit that DOESN'T EVEN HAPPEN, and could ONLY happen in some bizzarre Riley-verse in which Valve is Satan's pawn (rather than a game company that's offered unparalleled support throughout the years for their games).

I've been noticing the ugly return of a gambling site pop-up today (It was a gambling site. I say was because after about six consistant pop-ups, it stopped altogether once I went into the comment section {which of course delivered the pop-up})

Um, I guess, nevermind.

How is it that people can keep on whining about shit like this? A very significant percentage of websites use pop-up advertising now, they rely on it to help their bottom line. If they bug you so much then take the time to download Opera (or even FF, although I've found its pop up blocker a little limp wristed) and live happily ever after.

Blue can only be expected to fight "The Man" for so long, take the initiative and stop fucking whining. You're 3 minutes away from getting rid of them yourself!

If there are any other MEN here apart from Warhawk, Blue and myself, feel free to chime in on some football chat.

I submit that the team from my place of birth (and subsequent raising to adulthood) will prove to be far superior than yours after all is said and done this foot-ball season.

No, their innate advantages (conditioning, intelligence, along with general attitude) may not be apparent on the first itteration of the line-up-run-into-opposition algorithm which governs this game of foot-ball, perhaps not even after several complete 'games' of the sport have been completed. But, eventually your team will wear down, and it is at that moment that my team's greatness (which is but a reflection of the greatness of my home region) will shine through, and their glorious talent and ability shall lead them to the championship match.

Your team has no chance, make peace with your pagan gods while there is still time.

Thanks for the link, skipped the E2 and Portal vids as well, for the reasons you mentioned. Can't have spoilers for a multiplayer game, though, and that TF 2 vid was awesome, they're really staying true to the original with this one.

Loved the rocket jumping, only negative in my mind was that hte space between the forts appears to be smaller than in the original. Oh well, still looks great.